We’ve reproduced Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s State of the City speech below and annotated his comments with context and links, compiled by the VOSD staff, to help you better understand what the mayor said – and what he left out.

Click on the highlighted words for more details.

And if you’re curious about the state of the previous promises he’d made in prior speeches, check out this post.

♦♦♦

Thank you.

Tonight is a night to come together …

Reflect on our progress …

And look forward to what is coming next.

When I first addressed you two years ago, I pledged to work every day to rebuild our city, grow our economy, and bring together our communities.

By paving roads, repairing neighborhoods and balancing our budgets …

We are fulfilling that commitment – and laying the foundation for a better future.

And by investing in communities that hadn’t received their fair share …

We’re now giving our neighborhoods the attention they so rightfully deserve.

I’ve worked to build bipartisanship at City Hall so the voice of the public can be heard loud and clear.

You know, it’s a privilege to serve as your mayor.

As I begin my second term, I want to thank you for your support.

I’m honored to stand with you.

Every day I’m inspired by you.

And I will never stop working for you.

Thank you, San Diego.

Before we go any further, I want to say one thing about today’s news.

At the end of the day, Dean Spanos was never willing to work with us on a stadium solution and demanded a lot more money than we could have ever agreed to.

We live in a great city and we will move forward.

San Diego didn’t lose the Chargers.

The Chargers just lost San Diego.

But we have a lot of other civic priorities that we are going to discuss tonight.

We have a lot of work to do in the year ahead.

There are new challenges that we must overcome.

But I know that we can do it.

Because turning our greatest challenges into our greatest strengths is something San Diego has always done.

A century ago, San Diegans transformed our city from a tiny seaside outpost …

To a home base for the military forces … that changed the course of history.

Only in San Diego, a place detached from the nation’s traditional centers of power …

Could innovators have conceived the technologies that changed the entire planet.

It’s an off-ramp where folks can choose to accept life-changing social services – as an alternative to the criminal justice system.

We will always seek to offer care as the first resort, not the last.

We will also enforce the law because we must protect all our citizens …

Especially the unsheltered men, women and children who are often the most susceptible to crime.

The streets belong to all of us.

And for the welfare of both the homeless and the general public …

We should not …

We cannot …

And we will not …

Hesitate to keep them safe!

Finally, we are going to streamline services by creating San Diego’s first integrated assessment system …

And next month I’m going to formally ask homeless service providers for their proposals to make it a reality.

It’s about creating central hub …

Where any man or woman on the street can go to start the path to a better life …

And be directed to one of our region’s service providers, which will give them care that’s tailored to their unique situation.

It’s a totally new approach that will take time to build.

So in the meantime, we are working with tourism officials to dramatically expand the Downtown San Diego Partnership’s successful family reunification program …

To help homeless individuals reconnect with family and permanent housing.

The City will also be taking action to add hundreds of emergency beds.

My office is working to identify a new facility to meet this immediate need and shelter those on the streets.

The vision I just described will give us the infrastructure this emergency demands.

And we will need new partners along the way.

So I’m calling on San Diego’s business community – and every Mayor from across the County – to support and expand upon these efforts.

On our own, we can do much – but not everything.

But together, we can do more – and accomplish anything.

San Diego, we can do this.

Let’s be the city that takes collective and compassionate action.

Let’s be the city that puts hope back into the hearts of our fellow man.

Let’s be the city that brings safety – and dignity – back to our streets!

I have one more thing I’d like to discuss tonight.

Something I’ve been looking forward to talking about for some time.

Together, we’ve gotten San Diego back on track.

We have turned our city’s finances around over the last several years.

But the pension crisis took more than $1 billion from taxpayers over the past decade –

Syphoning money away from priorities like housing, road repair, and completing major civic projects such as expanding the convention center.

Too many times City Hall has swept problems under the rug, because it was easy.

Or asked for a blank check from taxpayers, because it was convenient.

I’ve stood with San Diegans to reject these approaches.

We need action and accountability.

San Diego, it’s time to get it done.

This year I will propose a ballot measure to finance the expansion of the San Diego convention center!

I will ask voters to increase lodging revenue from tourists so we can finally fund the waterfront expansion.

This is the only legitimate plan that guarantees we can move forward with this critical project.

Adding space directly next to the convention center will help Comic-Con grow in San Diego …

And will keep us competitive so we can attract more large conventions for decades to come.

The project will create thousands of jobs and bring in tens of millions of dollars to our economy.

But we have even more on our to-do list.

We are also going to use tourism revenue – and the economic growth generated by the expanded convention center – to address two more of San Diego’s biggest issues.

This ballot measure will also provide funding to help fix our streets –

And give the City its first dedicated revenue stream to help the homeless!

We have more than doubled the funding for road repair since I took office …

But the streets deficit is so deep, and was ignored for so long, that there are still hundreds of miles left to fix.

We San Diegans want road repairs.

But the fact is that the millions of tourists that come here every year use our streets too.

So we are going to use tourism revenue to fix them.

The measure will create a roads fund dedicated to repairing streets in every single San Diego neighborhood …

Devoting millions to street repair each year.

And this amount will grow over time – to ensure we properly maintain our roads once they are fixed.

San Diego, let’s once and for all reverse the disgraceful decline of San Diego’s streets.

We will also tap San Diego’s thriving tourism industry to support our new homeless care ecosystem – without hurting our economy.

Sacramento took away San Diego’s number one funding source for affordable housing – more than one hundred eighty million dollars and counting – when the State killed our redevelopment program to balance the budget.

Meanwhile, the state has not yet given a penny of the millions of dollars promised from Prop. 47 for drug rehabilitation and mental healthcare.

My plan will start restoring the homeless funding we’ve lost – and put more revenue behind our efforts to house San Diego’s homeless.

Experts agree that this type of investment will save taxpayers money.

In just one year, taxpayers and hospitals spent $4.3 million caring for just 25 homeless individuals.

But when that money was instead invested in housing and preventative care, it reduced costs and saved the public millions.

This is not only the fiscally responsible thing to do – it’s the right thing to do.

This is going to be good for our tourism economy, good for our infrastructure and good for our city.

I will present the measure to the City Council this year so they can place it on the ballot.

Together, we will invest in helping the homeless – and save taxpayers money.

Together, we will pave our roads.

And together, we will finally expand San Diego’s convention center!

In conclusion, this year we must challenge ourselves to do more than simply accept the world of today.

We must take action to create the city that we want for tomorrow.

The contours of our city are shaped every time we choose to defy limitations …

And rise above our expectations.

We did it when we transformed ourselves from a small seaside destination – into a capital of scientific innovation.

We did it when we created new water supplies in this urban desert we call home.

We do it so our children can inherit a life that’s better than today.

Here in San Diego, we have never let the world define us.

We define it.

It’s time to do it again.

Let’s harness our creativity to drive breakthroughs in technology.

Let’s make our region stronger by helping the neediest among us find a path to a better life.